RZA

The Wu-Tang mastermind on Run-DMC, Donny Hathaway, and drugs

Welcome to 5-10-15-20, a new feature in Pitchfork News. In 5-10-15-20, we talk to artists about the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives. Maybe we'll get a detailed roadmap of how their tastes and passions helped make them who they are. Maybe we'll just learn that they really liked hearing the "Defenders of the Earth" theme song over and over when they were kids. Either way, it'll be fun.

For this edition, we spoke with Wu-Tang Clan abbot RZA, who gave his age as "older than the sun, older than the moon, and older than the stars."

At that time, I didn't know the name of the song, or what music really was. I didn't really identify who was what or what was what. It was just whoever was on the radio or whatever my big cousins were playing. But I remember that song as a kid. I think it may have been out before I was born or whatever, but I think it was an ongoing song they put on the radio.

Something about that song seems to resonate with me. I think it was just the mourning feeling that it brought. Even though it was a love song and I'm five years old, I'm not in love, the music and the feeling that it had... it had a really right feeling. That's the only song I remember from my childhood. I was down south with my uncles at that time, so my family was separated and all that. But that song just seems to be something that was always in the back of my head. I can remember listening to it driving in my uncle's truck, hearing it on the radio.

When I was 10 years old, I was definitely in tune. When "Rapper's Delight" first came out, I didn't hear it. I was already writing my own little raps and shit. It came out when I was about nine. But I remember a kid in the neighborhood knew I was trying to do little raps of my own, and we used to always walk up to each other and rap to each other. He walked up to me, and he was like this: "After school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really off the wall / I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball." And I was like, "Oh shit! The boy's good!" I didn't know he stole it from the song. I guess he heard it before I heard it.

Then, when I heard it, I realized that the guy stole the song. That song was a big song for me-- that song and another song called "The Adventures of Super Rhymes" by an artist named Jimmy Spicer. Oh, "Super Rhymes" man, that song! First of all, me, my brothers and my cousins, we would sing the whole "Rapper's Delight" all the way through. Then, the other song, "The Adventures of Super Rhymes"-- yo, to me, that motherfucker killed it. He went through so many different raps through the whole song. It was an adventure, man. I mean, I remember playing that song over and over on my mom's record player, man. Over and over, memorizing the whole song, singing the whole song. I was writing; I had lyrics of my own to help me understand the storytelling of the lyrics. Even "Rapper's Delight", you know, he went to his friend's house to get some food. Or Big Bank Hank talking about he's schooling Superman, coming up to Lois Lane and convincing her to quit Superman. Those lyrics was hard in my head as a little kid. The imagination of those artists helped inspire my imagination.

That shit just made me feel like I was on top of the world, made me want to do anything to get a pair of Adidas. I finally got a pair, one pair, from my older brother. [laughs] I had a used pair. I did everything the record said, baby. [laughs] I was definitely a big Run-DMC fan. I felt like I would, one day, be them, or be as big as them. I was writing lyrics since I was nine years old, so by age 15, I was feeling pretty confident about my talent.

That song just resonated with me. That was pushing the New York life, the poverty, the crackheads. And the way that GZA was able to tell a story, you know what I mean? I just thought he was the greatest MC in the world. By then, he was on Cold Chillin'.

I always argue with a lot of people. They ask me for my top rappers, and he's always on my list. I mean, the GZA inspired me. And if I inspired a whole generation, they say, through my music production... he might be one of the biggest musical influences I ever had, and I was proud he was being recognized for it.

That's a great song. That song really resonated with our struggle-- the music, my production, everything about it. That song is just incredible to me. "Rainy Dayz" and "Glaciers of Ice", those two songs, I mean I just love those songs. I don't want to pat myself on the back, sound stupid and shit. But it just shows you could use samples and sounds to make something crazy like that.

Back then, we had to use two-inch tapes to make music. I wouldn't take a song off the reel until it was done. And that song, it was on the reel longer than almost any song that I've produced. Usually, I could do a song in one day. That song must have sat on the reel for four days, at least. I was making it, coming back and forth, doing it, adding another line this, or adding a vocal. Somebody would come in and sing something for me. Do this, do that, just in the basement of my fucking crib. Turkey burgers. Forget that, man.

Nothing

I don't think I had a favorite song. I think I was depressed. I lost my mom that year.

I felt like that song was my own life. I was finding new love again. I've always been a tough kid, anti-R&B. You know, I kind of kept emotions out. But I'm a man now. I'm a full-grown man. And that song really resonated with my own life, the love I was dealing with, the woman I was dealing with-- who I'm still with to this day. And that song used to bring tears to my eyes. We lost ODB by then. I just felt that it was real emotional.

It's different when a song speaks to you internally. A lot of songs, just internally, I could relate to them with my internal self. But, to have them be internal and external, it's different. It's a whole 'nother chamber.